1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of computer graphics and, more specifically, to animatable graphics lighting analysis reporting.
2. Description of the Related Art
In graphics design, one parameter that affects the final rendered image is the lighting that illuminates different surfaces of the graphics objects within the image at potentially different intensities. Lighting values are typically computed using sophisticated mathematical formulas involving factors like the positions of different objects relative to the light source(s) as well as the intensity of those light sources. Further, with a dynamic light source, i.e. a light source that has varying intensity and position over time, like daylight, lighting values associated with the different surfaces will vary over time too. Users of graphics modeling and creation software need to be able to inspect lighting values across the different objects in graphics scenes when designing the scenes to understand the effects that static and/or dynamic light sources have on their designs.
In typical graphics modeling and creation software, lighting values are computed with respect to different points on an object surface as the three-dimensional (3-D) scene is generated. However, the end-user can only view these lighting values one point at a time, usually by moving the cursor over the graphics scene. The end-user is not able to see the aggregate of the lighting values that were computed across the 3-D scene. Some graphics applications allow multiple lighting values to be computed for multiple points within a surface. However, there is no effective way to pull up these values associated with those surfaces.
In addition, since lighting values are computed one frame at a time, there usually is no efficient way to see the varying lighting values frame-over-frame, as the lighting changes.
As the foregoing illustrates, what is needed in the art is an effective mechanism for displaying lighting values associated with the surface of an object in a graphics scene, especially in graphics scenes where the lighting changes over time.